[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 104 (Thursday, July 12, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H4859-H4860]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE WORDS OF MARK HELPRIN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mark Helprin is an author who was educated at Harvard,
Oxford, Princeton, Columbia, having also served in the British Merchant
Navy and Israeli Military. I will simply convey his words in an article
first printed in Hillsdale College's Imprimis 3 years before 9/11
propelled us into the realization that we had been at war for over 20
years, but only the other side knew it was a war, and also before we
knew how crushing and debilitating our enormous debt would be and has
become.
I've shortened the words a bit and provided them here as they express
my heart more exquisitely than my own written words could:
When letters took a month by sea and the records of the
United States Government could be moved in a single wagon
pulled by two horses, we had great statesmanship. We had men
of integrity and genius: Washington, Hamilton, Franklin,
Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe. These were men who were in
love with principle, as if it were an art, which in their
practice they made it.
They studied empires that had fallen for the sake of doing
what was right in a small country that had barely risen and
were able to see things so clearly that they surpassed in
greatness each and every one of the classical models that
they had approached in awe.
Now, lost in the sins and complexity of a Xanadu, when we
desperately need their high qualities of thought, their
patience of deliberation and their unerring sense of balance,
we have only what we have, which is a political class that in
the main has abandoned the essential qualities of
statesmanship with the excuse that these are inappropriate to
our age. They are wrong. Not only do they fail to honor the
principles of statesmanship, they fail to recognize them,
having failed to learn them, having failed to want to learn
them.
In the main, they are in it for themselves. Were they not,
they would have a higher rate of attrition, falling with the
colors of what they believe rather than always landing on
their feet--adroitly, but in dishonor. In light of their vows
and responsibilities, this constitutes not merely a failure,
but a betrayal. And it is a betrayal of not only
statesmanship and principle, but of country and kin.
Why is that? It is because things matter. Even though it be
played like a game by men who excel at making it a game, our
life in this country, our history in this country, the
sacrifices that have been made for this country, the lives
that have been given to this country, are not a game. My life
is not a game. My children's lives are not a game. My
parents' lives were not a game. Your life is not a game.
Yes, it's true, we do have accumulated great stores of
power, of wealth, and decency against which those who pretend
to lead us can draw when, as a result of their vanities and
ineptitudes, they waste and expend the gifts of previous
generations. The margin of error bequeathed to them allows
them to present their failures as successes.
They say, as we are still standing, and a chicken is in the
pot, What does it matter if I break the links between action
and consequence, work and reward, crime and punishment, merit
and advancement? I myself cannot imagine a military threat
and never could. So what does it matter if I weld shut the
silo hatches on our ballistic missile submarines? What does
it matter if I weld shut my eyes to the weapons of mass
destruction in the hands of lunatics who are building long-
range missiles?
Our jurisprudence is the envy of the world, so what does it
matter if now and then I perjure myself a little? What is an
oath? What is a pledge? What is a sacred trust? Are not these
things the province of the kinds of people who were foolish
enough to do without all of their lives, to wear ruts in the
Oregon Trail, to brave the seas, to die on the beaches of
Normandy and Iwo Jima, and on the battlefields of Shiloh and
Antietam for me so that I can draw from America's great
accounts and look good, and be Presidential, and have fun in
all kinds of ways?
That is what they say--if not in words, then indelibly in
actions. They who, in robbing Peter to pay Paul, present
themselves as payers and forget that they are also robbers.
They who, with studied compassion, minister to some of us at
the expense of others. They who make goodness and charity a
public profession, depending on their election upon a well-
mannered embrace of these things and the power to move them
not from within themselves or by their own sacrifices but, by
compulsion, from others. They who, knowing very little or
next to nothing, take pride in eagerly telling everyone else
what to do. They who believe absolutely in their recitation
of pieties, not because they believe in the pieties, but
because they believe in themselves.
Nearly 400 years of America's hard-earned accounts, the
principles we established, the battles we fought, the morals
we upheld for century after century, our very humility before
God, now flow promiscuously through our hands like blood onto
sand, squandered and laid waste by a generation that imagines
[[Page H4860]]
history to have been but a prelude for what it would
accomplish. More than a pity, more than a shame, it is
despicable. And yet this parlous condition, this agony of
weak men, this betrayal, and this disgusting show are not the
end of things.
Principles are eternal. They stem not from our resolution
or lack of it, but from elsewhere where, in patient and
infinite ranks, they simply wait to be called. They can be
read in history.
{time} 1340
They arise as if of their own accord when, in the face of
danger, natural courage comes into play and honor and
defiance are born. Things such as courage and honor are the
mortal equivalent of certain laws written throughout the
universe. The rules of symmetry and proportion, the laws of
physics, the perfection of mathematics, human will, that not
only natural law but our own best aspirations have a life of
their own. They have lasted through far greater abuse than
abuses them now. They can be neglected, but they cannot be
lost. They can be thrown down, but they cannot be broken.
Each of them is a different expression of a single quality,
from which each arises in its hour of need. Some come to the
fore as others stay back, and then, with changing
circumstance, those that have gone unnoticed rise to the
occasion.
Rise to the occasion. The principle suggests itself from a
phrase, and such principles suggest easily and flow
generously. You can grab them out of the air from phrases,
from memories, from images.
A statesman must rise to the occasion. Democrats can do
this. Harry Truman had the discipline of plowing a straight
row 10, 12, and 14 hours a day, of rising and retiring with
the sun, of struggling with temperamental machinery, of
suffering heat and cold and one injury after another. After a
short time on a farm, presumptions about ruling others tend
to vanish. It is as if you are pulled to earth and held
there.
The man who works the land is hard put to think that he
would direct armies and nations. Truman understood the grave
responsibility of being President of the United States, and
that it was a task too great for him or anyone else to
accomplish without doing a great deal of injury--if not to
some, then to others. He understood that, therefore, he had
to transcend himself. There would be little enjoyment of the
job, because he had to be always aware of the enormous
consequences of everything he did. Contrast this with the
unspeakably vulgar pleasure in office of President Clinton.
Truman, absolutely certain that the mantle he assumed was
far greater than he could ever be, was continually and
deliberately aware of the weight of history, the
accomplishments of his predecessors, and, by humble and
imaginative projection, his own inadequacy. The sobriety and
care that derived from this allowed him a rare privilege for
modern Presidents to give to the Presidency more than he took
from it. It is not possible to occupy the Oval Office without
arrogantly looting its assets or nobly adding to them. May
God bless the President who adds to them, and may God condemn
the President who loots them.
America would not have come out of the Civil War as it did
had it not been led by Lincoln and Lee. The battles raged for
5 years, but for 100 years in the country, both North and
South, modeled itself on their character. They exemplified
most perfectly Churchill's statement, ``Public men charged
with the conduct of the war should live in a continual stress
of soul.''
The continual stress of soul is necessary as well in
peacetime, because for every good deed in public life, there
is a counterbalance. Benefits are given only after taxes are
taken. That is part of governance. The statesman, who
represents the whole Nation, sees in the equilibrium for
which he strives a continual tension between victory and
defeat. If he did not understand this, he would have no
stress of soul, he would merely be happy--about money
showered upon the orphan, taken from the widow; about
children sent to day care, so that they may be long absent
from their parents; about merciful parole of criminals, who
kill again. Whereas a statesman knows continual stress of
soul, a politician is happy, for he knows not what he does.
It is difficult for individuals or nations to recognize
that war and peace alternate, but they do. No matter how long
peace may last, it will end in war. Though most people cannot
believe at this moment that the United States of America will
ever actually fight for its survival, history guarantees that
it will. And, when it does, most people will not know what to
do. They will believe of war, as they did of peace, that it
is everlasting.
The statesman, who is different from everyone else, will,
in the midst of common despair, see the end of war, just as
during the peace he was alive to the inevitability of war,
and saw it coming in the far distance, as if it were a gray
wave moving quietly across a dark sea.
The politician will revel with his people and enjoy their
enjoyments. The statesman, in continual stress of soul, will
think of destruction. As others move in the light, he will
move in the darkness, so that as others move in darkness, he
may move in the light. This tenacity, that is given to those
of long and insistent vision, is what saves nations.
A statesman must have a temperament that is suited for the
Medal of Honor, in a soul that is unafraid to die.
Electorates rightly favor those who have endured combat, not
as a matter of reward for service, as is commonly believed,
but because the willingness of the soldier to give his life
is a strong sign of his correct priorities, and that in the
future he will truly understand that statesmen are not rulers
but are servants. It seems clear, even in these years of
squalid degradation, that having risked death for the sake of
honor is better than having risked dishonor for the sake of
life.
No matter what you're told by the sophisticated classes
that see virtue in every form of corruption and corruption in
every form of virtue, I think you know, as I do, that the
American people hunger for acts of integrity and courage. The
American people hunger for a statesman magnetized by the
truth, unwilling to give up his good name, uninterested in
calculation only for the sake of victory, unable to put his
interests before those of the Nation.
What this means in practical terms is no focus groups, no
polls, no triangulation, no evasion, no broken promises, and
no lies. These are the tools of the chameleon. They are
employed to cheat the American people of honest answers to
direct questions. If the average politician, for fear that he
may lose something, is incapable of even a genuine ``yes'' or
``no,'' how is he supposed to rise to the great occasions of
state? How is he supposed to face a destructive and
implacable enemy? How is he supposed to understand the
rightful destiny of his country and lead it there?
{time} 1350
At the coronation of an English monarch, he is given a
sword. Elizabeth II took it last, and as she held it before
the altar, she heard these words:
``Receive this kingly sword, brought now from the altar of
God and delivered to you by us, the Bishops and servants of
God, though unworthy. With this sword do justice, stop the
growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God, help and
defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone
to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and
reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order; that
doing these things may be glorious in all virtue; and so
faithfully serve our Lord.''
Would that we in America come once again to understand that
statesmanship is not the appetite for power but--because
things matter--a holy calling of self-abnegation and self-
sacrifice. We have made it something else. Nonetheless, after
and despite its betrayal, statesmanship remains the
manifestation, in political terms of beauty, and balance, and
truth. It is the courage to tell the truth, and thus discern
what is ahead. It is a mastery of symmetry of forces,
illuminated by the genius of speaking to the heart of things.
Statesmanship is a quality that, though it may be betrayed,
is always ready to be taken up again merely by honest
subscription to its great themes. Have confidence that even
in idleness its strengths are growing, for it is a
providential gift given to us in times of need. Evidently we
do not need it now, but as the world is forever interesting,
the time will surely come when we do. And then, so help me
God, I believe that, solely by the grace of God, the corrupt
will be thrown down and the virtuous will rise up.
Slavery was an abomination, but statesmen arose and fought until its
demise. But 13 years after the foregoing words were first said, we do
so desperately need that statesmanship, and God's unmitigated grace, so
that His providential gift of this Nation to us may endure for
additional generations and, in the process, may God resume blessing
these United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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